Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale gained snowboard cross combined group gold to safe Staff GB’s first ever Winter Olympic title on snow.
After heartbreak of their particular person occasions, the British pair made amends with an astonishing efficiency so as to add Olympic gold to the World Championship title they gained in 2023.
It’s the first time Nice Britain have gained two gold medals at a single Winter Olympics.
GB’s solely earlier Olympic medals on snow had been bronzes – for snowboarder Jenny Jones in 2014, and freestyle skier Izzy Atkin and snowboarder Billy Morgan 4 years later.
In an occasion that sees the boys race first, Nightingale crossed the road in second place behind France’s Mortgage Bozzolo to arrange Bankes completely – and she or he used her exceptional pace on the board to take the lead and pip Italy’s Michela Moioli to the road by 0.43 second.
It marked a second successive silver on this occasion for Moioli and Lorenzo Sommariva, whereas Bozzolo and Lea Casta took bronze.
Bankes, a former particular person world champion and two-time total World Cup winner, was left crestfallen on Friday when she exited the ladies’s occasion within the quarter-finals, simply as she did 4 years in the past in Beijing, regardless of being extensively tipped for a medal.
Equally, Nightingale was left wanting far more from himself after exiting the boys’s competitors within the spherical of 16, however discovered one other degree to supply arguably his finest racing alongside Bankes.
That they had been seeded in thirteenth place for this occasion, regardless of successful the one combined group World Cup of the season earlier than the Video games.
A big British contingent descended on Livigno Snow Park on Sunday to look at Bankes and Nightingale, with large union jacks plastered with their photos pinned to the entrance of the fan zone.
The purple, white and blue-clad supporters’ pleasure was palpable as Bankes and Nightingale first gained their opening quarter-final, after which their semi-final – by a way more snug margin – to make sure a shot at a medal.
And with solely 4 groups within the remaining, their probabilities of a podium end had been excessive – although within the chaotic world of snowboard cross, the place riders can hit speeds of 60mph and the slightest clip of a board can finish all hope, nothing is assured.
Bankes seemed surprised as she crossed the end line, coming to a cease on the boundaries because the ecstatic Nightingale enveloped her in a hug, earlier than sprinting over to the Staff GB coaches who had been ready within the wings to congratulate their champions.
